Blackwater has earned more than $1bn in contracts awarded under the Bush administration

A shooting by Blackwater guards in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in 2007 left 17 civilians dead, straining relations between Baghdad and Washington and led US prosecutors to bring charges against the contractors involved, six of whom have been indicted for mansluaghter

Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, is being sued in a US civil court by the families of the Baghdad shooting victims for alleged war crimes and extrajudicial killings